A cloud of steam shot out as she opened the door to put in two coffee mugs, but when she closed it and looked at me I loved her again and I could not give her up. "Buy my house from Ted. I'll pay you back, and we can live there." "Is he working over there now?" '''-T " I es. She wiped her hands carefully, the way doctors do. What had she decided? She walked out the front door, and I followed her. The walk to my house was about a mile, and this was the first time that we had ever been seen in public together, which, for a moment, made me happy. And then, when we were almost at the house, I understood that the fact that she'd al- lowed herself to be seen in public with me meant that our love was over for good. W hen we arrived, I saw that one crew was pulling out the front- porch columns and another had started work on the rear wall of the house. Ted was in the back, in the gardens, and I tried not to gasp at the way he had al- lowed the workers to trample the pan- sies, the tiny buds of portulaca, and the ' . -- ---= ---=--= --=:;:. new clumps of sedum into the mulched ground. The bees were everywhere, and I felt a terrible guilt at having be- trayed them. I apologized in a whisper as I watched Ted start up the machine that he would use to tear into the back wall. C. shouted at him to quit. He turned off the engine, and she walked over and began to talk to him, her back to me. I could see his face, and I could see that although he was listening to what she was saying, he was actually look- ing at me. He looked at me as if I'd taken something from him. A hard look. He knew. On some level, perhaps not a conscious level but deep down, he knew, as a man knows. He turned from C. and re-started the machine- he rammed it forward. Its claw made a rip in the wall, and he backed up to make another, but before he could move forward again there was a roar even louder than the motor. A darkness poured from my house. A ripsaw whine. A sweetness exploded from the back wall, and Ted and C. were swarmed by the bees. I was stung only twice. I think by young bees that did not know me. .=::;:;? --=- - ..::;::.-====- ===- :J ---= . ". J )' -2 , _ . "' --=---- ,- (, \ I..... I'é-'" -- '\) ÇV - @ ? 6y -:1' I retrieved C. and carried her straight to the garage. When I went back for Ted, I saw that he had fallen under a moving cloud that had stung him into silence. Honey dripped from the gash he'd made in the clapboards; honey dripped from the backhoe. I walked over to him and watched the bees mov- ing across his back. They seemed to have finished with their fury now; some flew off to repair the hive. As I waited for him to move, I reached out and tasted the honey from the claw of his machine. It was dark in the comb, and rich with the care I'd put into the flowers. I took a bigger piece of comb, brushed off a bee or two, and stuffed the dripping wax into my mouth. C., who had come to the door of the ga- rage, saw me do this. She said later that it was the most cold-blooded act she'd ever witnessed-me eating honey while Ted lay unconscious beneath the mov- ing bees. Although it seemed to me that my pause had been thoughtful, not mali- cious, it was what made her allow Ted to continue with his teardown once he had recovered from the attack. The strange thing is that although he had survived an uncountable number of stings that day, one single bee did him in about a year later. His throat closed, and he was gone before he could even shout for help. I passed the bar and entered a practice in Grand Forks, but even though I constantly asked my father to join me, he insisted on remaining in Pluto. When I visited him on weekends, I stayed at the Bluebird, and I gradually got used to the shaky feel of existence in those rooms. On every visit, I'd fill my car with books and household goods until I'd emptied out the stor- age space. On those weekends, I'd also walk the town to stretch my legs, and when I did I'd invariably visit the empty lot where our house had stood. Ted had died before deciding what flimsy box to erect on the site, so the lot had gone to weeds. One day as I was standing there a car drove up and stopped. An aged woman in a baggy summer dress got out and began to walk toward me. Her dress, a lurid pink floral pattern, threw me off. As she drew near, I recognized C. She had